A Study On The Value Of Modern Apprenticeship In Vocational Education

In the later period of industrial society,especially since some western countries entered the post-industrial society period,the apprenticeship training mode began to be widely used in developed countries and some developing countries.China also began to carry out pilot work of modern apprenticeship nationwide in 2014.Five years of pilot work has accumulated a number of valuable experience worth promoting,but also produced a lot of ideological and operational aspects of the problem.The fundamental question is "why does China need modern apprenticeships at this stage?”.The answer to this fundamental question is not only the demand for the reform of vocational education personnel training mode in China's industrial transformation stage,but also the demand for constructing the basic theory of modern apprenticeship personnel training mode.Existing research mainly shows the extrinsic value of modern apprenticeship for the government,schools,employers and apprentices(e.g.,economic value),but the lack of exploration of source of modern apprenticeship value,ignored the key elements of the vocational education personnel training: industry,and ignored the attention to person itself.one of the most critical is the lack of awareness of the apprentice and business experts.Epistemology provides a useful perspective for us to answer this question.The search for the knowledge characteristics will allow us to answer the fundamental question of "what kind of person should we have?" and "how we cultivate such kind of person”.The so-called "knowledge characteristics" refer to the attributes of various types of knowledge and the way they are organized.Based on the research results of philosophy,psychology,management,education and other disciplines,this study takes the "knowledge characteristics" of employees in manufacturing,service and cultural entrepreneurship industries as the breakthrough point,and through in-depth analysis of the knowledge characteristics in the working process of employees in various industries,and analysis of the formation mechanism of these knowledge,in order to explore the value of the modern apprenticeship in personnel training in the context of industrial transformation as well as the need for improvement.In order to analyze the knowledge characteristics of employees in three major industries,this study selected 11 first-line employees in manufacturing industry,16 first-line employees in service industry and 12 first-line employees in cultural and creative industries from three dimensions: industry,experience and typical work tasks,using "grounded theory" as methodology,thinking-aloud and observation as data collection methods.The data collected from thinking-aloud and observation had been coded at three levels and the third-level codes had been used to analyze in the working process.Finally,the knowledge characteristics of front-line practitioners in three major industries were formed:(1)The knowledge used by front-line practitioners in modern manufacturing industry mainly includes the following eight types: knowledge of technical principles,knowledge of process technology,knowledge of software and hardware use,knowledge of operation skills,knowledge of production situation,knowledge of judgment and decision-making,knowledge of professional ethics and basic knowledge of relevant positions.These knowledge revolves around the working process of "Thinking and design-Implementation-Verification and decision-making",forming a special organizational mode.(2)The frontline practitioners of modern service industry mainly use nine kinds of knowledge: knowledge about service theory,knowledge about regional service,knowledge about software and hardware operation and work order use,knowledge about operation skills,knowledge about judgment and decision-making,knowledge about work situation,basic knowledge about relevant posts,knowledge about industry and professional ethics.Each type of knowledge includes different types of content.These knowledge revolves around the working process of "Requirement identification-Scheme design-Scheme execution-Judgment and decision-making of execution results",forming a special organizational mode.(3)The frontline practitioners of cultural and creative industries mainly use ten kinds of knowledge: knowledge about creative theory,knowledge about personalized creativity,knowledge about the use of software and hardware,knowledge about operational skills,knowledge about judgment and decision-making,knowledge about work situation,basic knowledge about relevant posts,knowledge about industry and knowledge about professional ethics.knowledge in material base.These knowledge revolves around the working process of "Creative Needs Analysis-Creative Design-Creative Realization-Creative Testing",and forms a special organizational mode.The above-mentioned knowledge has its own forming mechanism:(1)the formation of service,creative theory knowledge and technological principle knowledge emphasizes the connection with experience and phenomenon;(2)the formation of software and hardware and work order use knowledge is the result of the co-change of operability and cognition;(3)the formation of operational skill knowledge or technical knowledge is the process of "embodied cognition";(4)The formation of work situation knowledge is the process of employees ‘organizational socialization;(5)the formation of decision-making knowledge is the process of solving ill-structured problems;(6)the formation of professional ethics knowledge is the process of interaction between social norms and workplace norms;(7)the formation of basic post knowledge needs the help of post group vocational education and enterprise situational learning;(8)the formation of industry knowledge relies on the interaction between endogenous and exogenous knowledge;(9)the formation of knowledge in material base is the process of knowledge personality coding and long-term memory formation;(10)the formation of personalized creative knowledge is a multi-factor process of individual,environment and culture;(11)the formation of technological knowledge includes tacit transmission of experience system and coding diffusion of theoretical system;(12)the formation of regional service knowledge is essentially a process of "bilateral edge" acquisition of local knowledge.The training mode of modern apprenticeship in vocational education has the characteristics of "multi-subject participation","multi-situational transition","dual identities and multi-mentor","alternating operation of working and learning","flexible design of cycle" and "structured teaching,studying and evaluation".Based on the analysis of knowledge characteristics of employees in three major industries,this study concludes that the modern apprenticeship system of vocational education has the following seven values in the process of cultivating all kinds of knowledge of employees:(1)providing different types of knowledge learning situations for learners;(2)promoting the construction of deep-seated meaning of knowledge;(3)promoting the transfer of knowledge from school to workplace,from workplace to workplace and from workplace to school;(4)Promoting learners ‘knowledge innovation;(5)Providing the environment and elements for cultivating knowledge links;(6)Promoting learners' knowledge iteration and renewal in different periods;(7)Stimulating learners ‘interest in learning and developing learners' metacognitive and non-cognitive skills.At present,there are still some problems in the pilot work of the modern apprenticeship in China,such as "the lack of value of lifelong education of modern apprenticeship","the lack of community and society as the main body of modern apprenticeship","the lack of higher quality standards","the lack of typicality of work tasks and part of knowledge","the lack of industry characteristics","less consideration of major selection”,“less full considering the selection of specialties and teaching methods”.These problems conceal the educational value of modern apprenticeship.In order to further expand the value of modern apprenticeship in training skilled personnel,the future modern apprenticeship system should establish the concept of serving individual "experience growth" by modern apprenticeship;build a multi-agent cooperative education mechanism;implement a power-sharing model under the control of key areas in the field of standard construction;and pay attention to the cultivation of core quality of vocational education based on post situation.The "lifelong" nature of modern apprenticeship is demonstrated through multi-step design;the mode improvement based on regional industry characteristics is encouraged;and the applicability of modern apprenticeship is emphasized.